A FATAL NECESSITY

As whispers of war fill the air in 1935 England, certain members of the upper class remain smitten with the Nazi regime.

Judge Eliot Waring drops a bombshell on his daughter Sophy: Her stepmother, Emilie, has left him for the architect planning their new home. Sophy spills the beans to her sister, Gizi, who’s her complete opposite: Sophy is practical, while Gizi is chasing aristocratic men alongside her friend Dee Malpas. Dee’s dad might be in trade and Jewish, but he’s also wealthy, and that money has gained her a new fiancé. Sophy’s older brother, Sam, who lives in Berlin, and their cousin, Alexei, a clever teen who lives with them, still need to be told about Emilie’s desertion. But the day after Dee’s engagement party at Falquonroy, her family’s home, it becomes clear that Emilie isn’t going anywhere, since her dog has found her dead body on the spot where the Warings’ new house was supposed to be built. DCI Herbert Reardon’s team includes London-based DS Tom Jago, who’s in the area quietly investigating Oswald Mosley’s fascist followers. The architect denies any plans to run off with Emilie, and though the judge might have enemies from his years on the bench, why would someone kill his departing wife? Reardon and Jago hope that a packet of photos found in Emilie’s handbag—which had gone missing but then turned up at Falquonroy—will help illuminate her mysterious past. When Sam arrives home, having quit his job in Germany over the Nazi threat, he recognizes Jago as a friend from university days. Sophy and Jago, who start to develop more than just a working relationship, recognize that it may take all their combined knowledge to find a killer.

The ambience of a Golden Age detective story with a thrilling twist of espionage.